Started to see cracks in this defense 2 weeks ago

Our O Line was not nearly as effective tonight as we all expected them to be. Downright disappointing.

With their size and experience, and CS in the backfield, the Tigers should be able to truthfully say, "Yeah, we're gonna run right at ya. And there's not a damned thing you can do about it. Get used to it."

I'm still wondering what happened there.

The D line has not been dominant so far this year, but I really thought it was because they had not been called on to perform at their highest level.

Sometimes, no matter how well you plan or how hard you play, things just don't go your way.

Let's hope the Tigers got all of that stuff out of the way tonight.

Put this behind us, and go get USCe next week!

 

Correct!!! LSU is still loaded on D probably even more talented than any D NS had at LSU. Coaching seems to have taken a major drop off on that side of the ball. I'm still gun shy from the Dinardo years and hope Miles has more nads to make changes if needed. Peveto couldn't coach the special teams, not sure how he got qualified to run the D.

 

Most coaches go conservative when you have an inexperienced erratic QB. Even when Lee had time he was all over the place with his passes. I lost count of the times he threw way behind an open receiver tonight on 5-10 yard crossing routes.

 

It's too early to say that the loss of NS players are the reason.

Seriously, anybody who thought we weren't going to struggle a bit on offense this year was delusional. Freshman QB DON'T tear up the SEC. It just doesn't happen. Against less talented teams, we can hide Lee, but Florida's talent is equal to ours. They stacked the line and dared us to throw down the field. Even though Florida's defense is young and has stuggled a bit, they are still plenty good enough to take away CS if that's all we can do.

The defense, on the other hand, shouldn't be this bad. I know we have young corners, but that doesn't excuse the horrible play of our line and LBs. No pressure, no penetration and bad tackling. On some of those running plays, there wasn't a Tiger in site. This is the first game we have played against an offense that could really hurt us and although Florida looked scary good on offense last night, you just CAN'T give up 51 points. We looked passive. Too much unfounded confidence that we could get pressure with only 4 guys. Florida brought extra guys constantly on defense. Why couldn't we?? If you're gonna give up 51 points, at least be aggressive. That's the part that worries me. NS and Bo Pellini's schemes were aggressive. We look very passive right now on defense.

 

Players always appear slow when they are out of position or unsure of their responsibilities. We have the athletes. When a linebacker or slow safety is lined up on Harvin, bad things are going to happen.
Tepper-Dunson-Hines Ward- similar results

 

Our defense did have cracks in it last night, but they rarely left the field. Special teams did them no favors with field position either. They played virtually the entire first 1/2, and after midway through the 3rd quarter, it did not get much better. In addition there where plenty of missed assignments and a few bad alignments, but in the end, missed tackles stacked up also.

However, we knew Florida had a good offense and we knew we had these same issues in our other games. What I was not expecting was for our OLine to be so thoroughly dominated. Not once did I see them get nasty and blow anyone of the ball. I realize they stacked the line several times to stop the run, and I don't care. We had neither the strength of will or blocking schemes to overcome it. Lee did throw some errant passes, but I counted 7 drops by receivers(many with zero contact) that effectively killed drives. Our first quarter time of possession was under 3 minutes.

Some genius please step up and tell me you saw that one coming. I had confidence when we saw them come out in the 3rd quarter and drive. However our defense gave one right back. At this point, we had to know that we would have to outscore them to win, and we simply did not.

Florida played a phenomenal game. Hats off to you. Tigers could not have done much else wrong but ultimately, I look at our OLine and scratch my head.

 

Well Red, I called this game in the Predictions thread. I just had no idea the Def would get destroyed like this. I had worries about the Def when watching MSU pass easily on us. Young inexperienced dbs and safeties, which were out of position a lot. Also, the DL hasn't been getting to the QB's at all. That really concerned me also, and couple all of this with co-DC's.

I have come back to reality now, and I think a lot of us before the season wasn't really expecting us to repeat as national champs and thought it would be an excellent season just to get back to the SECCG. I remember seeing a lot of people saying we would have 2 losses at best. I think that is accurate.

But when the season gets started it seems our expectations totally change. But reality is that we have co-DC's that don't seem to be preparing and teaching the players like NS, WM, and BP did. We have had some top notch DC's for the past years and we've depended on that defense to hang on to games for us.

So I'm back to reality, co-DC's(not the quality of NS or BP), young players in the secondary (they need top DC's to help them learn how to play and be in the right positions), new QB's with little experience, and DL that has been struggling against some lesser opponents.

We will be in trouble with UGA and Bama if the DL lets the QB's be comfortable in the pocket. Also the players need to stop the trash talking in the media.